When a mysterious envelope arrives for Jake Ransom, he and his older sister, Kady, are plunged into a gripping chain of events. An artifact found by their parents - on the expedition from which they never returned - leads Jake and Kady to a strange world inhabited by a peculiar mix of long-lost civilizations, a world that may hold the key to their parents' disappearance.

Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx

Using his father's watch as a key, Jake intends to return to Calypsos. Instead he's thrust into a strange desert land where he's joined by his friends Marika, Pindor, and Bach'uuk and his sister, Kady. As they try to figure out what to do next, a surprise attack by the beautiful young Princess Nefertiti takes them all captive. Soon even she is battling the Skull King's minions. For Jake has something the Skull King wants - a prize that will give its owner awesome power, including control of the fearsome Howling Sphinx.

Altar of Eden: A Novel

A master at combining heart-stopping suspense and scientific intrigue, New York Times best-selling author James Rollins returns with a thrilling adventure like no other--a shocking story of cruel genetic experiments done in the name of national security and, most disturbing of all, tied to a secret history of the Book of Genesis.

Excavation

High in the Andes, Dr. Henry Conklin discovers a 500-year-old mummy that should not be there. While deep in the South American jungle, Conklin's nephew, Sam, stumbles upon a remarkable site nestled between two towering peaks, a place hidden from human eyes for thousands of years. Ingenious traps have been laid to ensnare the careless and unsuspecting, and wealth beyond imagining could be the reward for those with the courage to face the terrible unknown.

Blood Infernal: The Order of the Sanguines Series

As an escalating scourge of grisly murders sweeps the globe, archaeologist Erin Granger must decipher the truth behind an immortal prophecy foretold in the Blood Gospel, a tome written by Christ and lost for centuries: The shackles of Lucifer have been loosened, and his Chalice remains lost. It will take the light of all three to forge the Chalice anew and banish him again to his eternal darkness.

Amazonia

The Rand scientific expedition entered the lush wilderness of the Amazon and never returned. Years later, one of its members has stumbled out of the world's most inhospitable rainforest - a former Special Forces soldier, scarred, mutilated, terrified, and mere hours from death, who went in with one arm missing...and came out with both intact.

Subterranean

Travel to the bottom of the earth...to a place you never dreamed existed. Beneath the ice...a hand-picked team of specialists makes its way toward the center of the world. They are not the first to venture into this magnificient subterranean labyrinth. Those they follow did not return....

Deep Fathom

Ex-Navy SEAL Jack Kirkland surfaces from an aborted underwater salvage mission to find the Earth burning. Solar flares have triggered a series of gargantuan natural disasters. Earthquakes and hellfire rock the globe. Air Force One has vanished from the skies with America’s president on board. Now, with the U.S. on the narrow brink of a nuclear apocalypse, Kirkland must pilot his oceangoing exploration ship, Deep Fathom, on a desperate mission miles below the ocean’s surface.

Innocent Blood: The Order of the Sanguines Series, Book 2

A vicious attack at a ranch in California thrusts archaeologist Erin Granger back into the fold of the Sanguines. Following the prophetic words found in the Blood Gospel, Erin must join forces with Army Sergeant Jordan Stone and Father Rhun Korza to discover and protect a boy believed to be an angel given flesh. But an enigmatic enemy of immense power and terrifying ambition seeks the same child, not to save the world, but to hasten its destruction.

The Bone Labyrinth: Sigma Force, Book 11

A series of strange events throws the world into turmoil. As a manned Chinese rocket explodes upon launch, three American astronauts, each separated by thousands of miles, are murdered. Then an archaeologist in Croatia uncovers a new cavern system that reveals elaborate primitive paintings by a tribe of Neanderthals.

The Kill Switch: Tucker Wayne, Book 1

The mission seems simple enough: Extract a pharmaceutical magnate from Russian soil. But nothing is as it appears to be. A desperate call thrusts Captain Tucker Wayne and his stalwart military dog, Kane, into a frantic race to rescue the brilliant-but-deluded Abram Bukolov from a cadre of skilled assassins. Hunted and betrayed at every turn, Tucker and Kane must discover the truth behind a horror out of the ancient past that can be weaponized to terrorize the modern world. As time rapidly runs out, the deep and intimate bond between dog and soldier will be tested to the extreme.

Ice Hunt

Carved into a moving island of ice twice the size of the United States, Ice Station Grendel has been abandoned for more than 70 years. The twisted brainchild of the finest minds of the former Soviet Union, it was designed to be inaccessible and virtually invisible. But an American undersea research vessel has inadvertently pulled too close - and something has been sighted moving inside the allegedly deserted facility, something whose survival defies every natural law.

The 6th Extinction: Sigma Force, Book 10

A remote military research station sends out a frantic distress call, ending with a chilling final command: Kill us all! Personnel from the neighboring base rush in to discover everyone already dead - and not just the scientists, but every living thing for 50 square miles is annihilated: every animal, plant, and insect, even bacteria. The land is entirely sterile - and the blight is spreading. To halt the inevitable, Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma must unravel a threat that rises out of the distant past.

The Blood Gospel: The Order of the Sanguines, Book 1

An earthquake in Masada, Israel, kills hundreds and reveals a tomb buried in the heart of the mountain. A trio of investigators - Sergeant Jordan Stone, a military forensic expert; Father Rhun Korza, a Vatican priest; and Dr. Erin Granger, a brilliant but disillusioned archaeologist - are sent to explore the macabre discovery, a subterranean temple holding the crucified body of a mummified girl. But a brutal attack at the site sets the three on the run, thrusting them into a race to recover what was once preserved in the tomb's sarcophagus: a book rumored to have been written by Christ's own hand....

The Forgotten Room: A Novel

New York Times best seller Lincoln Child returns with a riveting new thriller featuring the charismatic and quirky Professor Jeremy Logan, renowned investigator of the strange and the inexplicable, as he uncovers a long-lost secret experiment only rumored to have existed.

The Eye of God: A Sigma Force Novel, Book 9

In the wilds of Mongolia, a research satellite has crashed, triggering an explosive search for its valuable cargo: a code-black physics project connected to the study of dark energy...and a shocking image of the eastern seaboard of the United States in utter ruin. At the Vatican, a package arrives containing two strange artifacts: a skull scrawled with ancient Aramaic and a tome bound in human skin. DNA evidence reveals that both came from the same body: the long-dead Mongol king Genghis Khan.

The Doomsday Key: A Sigma Force Novel, Book 6

At Princeton University, a famed geneticist dies inside a biohazard lab. In Rome, a Vatican archaeologist is found dead in St. Peter's Basilica. In Africa, a U.S. senator's son is slain outside a Red Cross camp. The three murders on three continents bear a horrifying connection: all the victims are marked by a Druidic pagan cross burned into their flesh. The bizarre murders thrust Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma Force into a race against time to solve a riddle going back centuries.

Cannibal: Jack Sigler, Book 7

Still recovering from the tragic loss of a good friend, Jack Sigler, callsign: King, leads the Chess Team - a crew of former Delta operators - back into action. But what should be a routine snatch-and-grab to capture a drug cartel leader escalates out of control, throwing the team into a challenge unlike anything they've ever faced.

Project 731: A Kaiju Thriller

In the wake of a Kaiju assault that left the nation's capital in ruins, Jon Hudson - director of the Department of Homeland Security's Fusion Center, Paranormal - is preparing his team for an uncertain future. While hiding Lilly, a chimera cat-girl rescued from Island 731, from GOD - the Genetic Offense Directive, a black ops organization within DARPA - Hudson attempts to raise Maigo.

Map of Bones: A Sigma Force Novel, Book 2

During a crowded service at a cathedral in Germany, armed intruders in monks' robes unleash a nightmare of blood and destruction. But the killers have not come for gold; they seek a more valuable prize: the bones of the Magi who once paid homage to a newborn savior...a treasure that could reshape the world.

Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel, Book 8

Galilee, 1025. A cunning Templar knight uncovers a holy treasure: the Bachal Isu - the staff of Jesus Christ - a priceless icon that holds a mysterious and terrifying power that will forever change humanity if unleashed. A millennium later, Somali pirates hijack a yacht off the coast off the Horn of Africa, kidnapping a young pregnant American woman and brutally killing her husband. Painter Crowe and his SIGMA team are enlisted for the top secret rescue mission. The kidnappee is the daughter of the U.S. President.

The Death Relic

The New World, 1545: Vanquished by the Spanish Empire, little remained of the Aztec and Mayan civilizations. From the ashes of their cities, a unified legend emerged: Their conquerors possessed a mysterious object, an artifact so powerful - so deadly - that it came to be known as "the Death Relic". Yucatan Peninsula, present day: When Maria Pelati's research team disappears in Mexico, she calls Jonathon Payne and David Jones, who embark on a perilous mission to find the missing archaeologists.

The Hunters

The Team: Financed by a billionaire philanthropist, this elite team - a soldier, an historian, a computer whiz, a weapons expert, and a thief - is tasked with finding the world's most legendary treasures. The Mission: Fearing a German victory in WWI, the Romanian government signed a deal with Russia to protect the country's treasures. In 1916, two trains full of gold and the most precious possessions of the Romanian state - paintings, jewelry, and ancient artifacts - were sent to the underground vaults of the Kremlin....

Primeval: An Event Group Thriller, Book 5

Thousands of years after giant beasts crossed the land bridge into North America and mysteriously disappeared, a rare journal documenting the truth about the Romanovs' execution emerges, triggering an international competition and leading the Event Group to make a baffling discovery.

Cibola: A Dane Maddock Adventure

Dane Maddock returns in another unforgettable adventure! When Dane rescues beautiful archaeologist Jade Ihara, he joins her on asearch for the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola. Cibola takes the reader on a journey across the American southwest, where the ruins of the mysterious Anasazi hide deadly secrets, and foes lurk around every corner. Dane and his partner, "Bones" Bonebrake, must decipher clues from the fabled Copper Scroll, outwit their enemies, and be the first to unlock the secret of Cibola.

Audible Editor Reviews

With his Jake Ransom series James Rollins uses his adeptness at exploring the mysterious and thrilling and gears it towards a younger audience. Jake and his sister, Kady, are drawn into a fantastic adventure prompted by a letter and an artifact from one of their long-missing parent's expeditions. But when they discover a strange and savage land that may have been the cause of their parents' disappearance they find that the evil Skul King wants to make sure that they also disappear. Pedro Pascal gives a steady performance of this audiobook, hushed and intense, that accentuates the enigmatic tone of the story making it palpable to young or old listeners.

Publisher's Summary

When a mysterious envelope arrives for Jake Ransom, he and his older sister, Kady, are plunged into a gripping chain of events. An artifact found by their parents - on the expedition from which they never returned - leads Jake and Kady to a strange world inhabited by a peculiar mix of long-lost civilizations, a world that may hold the key to their parents' disappearance.

But even as they enter the gate to this extraordinary place, savage grackyls soar across the sky, diving to attack. Jake's new friends, the pretty Mayan girl Marika and the Roman Pindor, say the grackyls were created by an evil alchemist - the Skull King. And as Jake struggles to find a way home, it becomes obvious that what the Skull King wants most is Jake and Kady, dead or alive.

I cringed every time he kept mispronouncing the same words over and over again. His performance was pretty good, but the constant mispronunciations were SO distracting, that I kept getting pulled out of the story.

I've read Rollins from his first book on. Spooky, crazy, unbelievable stuff that fascinated me. Then he moved on to Sigma Force and I really enjoy those. So when I saw this I didn't take a close look and here I was in fantasy land. Great fun read. Just proves to me that with a decent imagination you're never too old!

Another good read by Rollins, however, this one is also geared towards a little younger teenage reader. My hubby and I still enjoyed it even though it was not quit as sophisticated as some of his other books!We love Rollins' creative mind and where his books take us! A good journey!Enjoy!

Actually a pretty good book but writen for preteens. I was upset that it doesnt say that in any of the descriptions. I felt kinda dooped but having puchased it, I listened to it and found it to be worth while. Exellent if you have a preteen to listen with you.

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